A Decade Through Music An Original Composition for Piano 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2011 2018 2019 Matura Paper by Jasmine-Rose Chapman N4a Kantonsschule Enge 4th January 2021 Supervised by Beat Dähler Table of Contents 1 | Summary .................................................................................................................................................... 2 2 | Foreword ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 3 | Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 4 4.1 | Process – Information ....................................................................................................................... 5 4.2 | Process – Composition .................................................................................................................... 6 5 | Contents ...................................................................................................................................................... 9 6 | Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 23 7 | Appendix – Themes ........................................................................................................................... 24 9 | Glossary ................................................................................................................................................... 31 9 | YouTube Link ........................................................................................................................................ 44 8 | Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 45 1 | P a g e 1 | Summary “A Decade Through Music” is an original piano composition that aims to communicate selected worldwide events through music. Unique, personally composed musical themes represent certain events from 2010 to the end of 2019. The themes are combined to create a twelve-minute piano piece which was written on the programme MuseScore©1. The sheet music can be viewed as a PDF2 and the composition can be listened to on YouTube3. 1 MuseScore©. In: https://musescore.org/en. / 02.12.2020. 2 See P. 32 3 QR Code can be found on P. 44 2 | P a g e 2 | Foreword “Art and Life are not two separate things.” -Felix Mendelssohn 1809-18474 I cannot remember a time when music was not part of our home. My Grandmother was a music teacher, my mother grew up playing the piano and flute and my sister has a passion for ballet. Growing up, I was always surrounded by music, pop or classical. We would often go to pop concerts, ballet performances or theatre productions. I had the honour of sing- ing with Beyoncé at the Hallenstadion on my tenth birthday during her 2013 world tour. I am unable to pinpoint the time when I fell in love with music, it has just always been there. Global stories were also brought home and discussed around the dinner table. My father travelled extensively on business, and this gave me insights into different cultures. My intrigue for the world was widened when I moved to Zürich from the North of England in 2011, aged eight. This was when I became interested in life and cultures outside my home country and when my ties between England and Switzerland were made. I began playing the piano in 2010, aged seven. Since then, never has a day gone by when I have not connected with music. Whether it be the melodies of pop through headphones on my way to school, my piano practice or my sister’s classical ballet music. As I have grown older, I have learned that music not only connects us, but it is also a form of expres- sion. The composition I have created is a musical narrative of events that have taken place around the world in the last ten years, connecting life and art. I would like to give thanks to my Mother and Grandmother for sharing their passion and love of music. Without them, I may not have had the opportunity to experience the many varieties of music as a form of artistic expression. I also thank Beat Dähler, my music teacher at Kantonsschule Enge, for his teaching throughout my four years at the school and specifically his support during my Matura paper. Together they have integrated music into my own life. 4 Wikipedia. Felix Mendelssohn. In: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Mendelssohn. / 09.12.2020. Classic FM. Felix Mendelssohn-Barthodly. In. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/mean- ing-of- life-great-composers/mendelssohn/. / 09.12.2020. 3 | P a g e 3 | Introduction “A Decade Through Music” is an acoustic composition constructed in the form of a rondo. In a rondo, a repeated theme, similar to a chorus, alternates with contrasting sections which act like verses. In my composition the verses represent a year in the decade with the chosen events being represented by specific musical themes. These events may be environmental, political or tragic. The musical theme could also represent the rise of a social movement. The bias of media may report these issues as negative. However, in the midst of disasters or tragic events, compassion, care and gratitude as well as the beauty of nature and the resilience of life, remain. For example, the hope given by the rescues of the 2011 tsunami in Japan5. The chorus of this rondo aims to communicate the consistent positives of life that are not always appreciated as much as they could be while celebrating the New Year. This composition invites the listener to reflect on these past events, offering a deeper emotional remembrance. It aims to tell the stories, but also lets the stories be felt and responded to at a deeper level than just reading facts. Looking back and remembering events allows us to respond to the incidents in a more heartfelt way. Perhaps we might now see them differently. Just as I, in 2020, look back on the happenings of 2010 with the eyes of a young adult, rather than a child. 5 Japan Earthquake & Tsunami of 2011. Live Science. In: https://www.livescience.com/39110-japan- 2011-earthquake-tsunami-facts.html. / 23.10.2020. 4 | P a g e 4.1 | Process – Information With a large array of events, which ones should I include in my composition? The idea was to include any occurrence that caused an impact on the world, focusing on events that occupied the headlines worldwide for an extended period of time. This information was gathered from the web and my personal newspaper collection that I started in December 2014, aged eleven. I began this newspaper collection as I had an interest in events that were shaping the world we live in and a desire for them to be remembered. Figure 1: Personal newspaper collection, Charlie Hebdo Paris attacks 2015 (left) and Manchester Arena Bombing, 2018 (right). Originally, I had selected too many headline events to include in my composition and therefore needed to reduce the quantity. During this process I came to understand that the definition of a tragedy differs from person to person depending on one’s personal ex- periences, background and outlook. I find I am more affected by destruction in my home- land or in situations I relate to because of my age. For example, the Manchester Arena terrorist attack6 that deliberately targeted teenage girls in 2017, was in my home city. Had I not moved to Switzerland; I could have been there. Therefore, I streamlined my chosen events, leaving out others, despite them sometimes also being tragic. This left me neglect- ing certain events, for example natural disasters like the 2018 California forest fires7 that destructed areas in Northern California and Southern Oregon or the earthquake that struck on the border of Iran and Iraq on 12th November 20178. Devastating though they were, certain types of disasters did not touch me as deeply as they do reoccur. 6 Manchester Arena bombing. Personal Collection P. 87. 20 Minuten. 24.05.2017. 7 CAL Fire. In: https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/. / 23.10.2020. 8 CNN. In: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/12/middleeast/iraq-earthquake/index.html. / 23.10.2020. 5 | P a g e 4.2 | Process – Composition “In music, you are basically having a conversation.” Hans Zimmer 20199 As I had no composition experience, I started gathering inspiration from famous compos- ers to inspire my own piece. Johann Sebastian Bach’s inventions10 were an inspiration for the ‘chorus’ (Appendix, Theme 11) and Airplanes by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams11 was sampled as the aeroplane theme (Appendix, Theme 7). When composing I was moti- vated by the quote from film score composer Hans Zimmer of viewing music as “a conver- sation”. A considerable amount of time during my summer holidays was spent experi- menting at the piano. Sometimes I felt I was getting nowhere and not progressing, other times everything just fell into place. I looked at major keys and relative minors. I used chords and their progressions to represent events involving hundreds of people, for ex- ample the 2015 Mecca stampede12 (Sheet music, bars 160-165). Dynamics were used to add suspense, and rests represented shock and devastation after a tragedy. Inserting emo- tional and melodic minor sections helped represent tragedies such as the migrant crisis of 201513 (SM,14 bars 176-191). Although I experimented with variations of timing, I de- cided